Nexxus Scotland

Connolly, Trish

Professor of Bioengineering; Director of Medical Devices Doctoral Training Centre, University of Strathclyde.

A highly-respected figure in Scotland's bioengineering community, Professor Trish Connolly has worked across Europe in industry and academia researching medical devices for point of care testing. Her work took her to Italy and Switzerland before she resettled in her native Glasgow where she is recognised as a leading light in diagnostics in the West of Scotland.

A graduate in electrical and electronic engineering, Prof Connolly redirected her career path towards bioengineering after completing her PhD, which involved looking jointly at cell biology and electronics.

Her first professional role was at the University of Glasgow, where she started a new bioelectronics research group and introduced a new final year course for bioengineering.

While working on bio-sensors and cell micro-devices at the University, Prof Connolly was headhunted by Byk Gulden (now part of Altana Pharma) to head up their research facility in Milan, again operating in diagnostics. In 1997, after five years with them, she moved directly to Nycomed Amersham in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she was in charge of industrialisation of research and development.

Prof Connolly moved back to Scotland in April 1999, where she took up her current position as Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Strathclyde and has since been at the forefront of efforts to develop innovative medical devices.

She is also Director of the UK's first Medical Devices Doctoral Training Centre at the University. The Centre, which was set up with a £4.3m grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's Life Sciences Interface Programme, aims to foster and strengthen collaboration between physical scientists, engineers and life scientists.

Prof Connelly's extensive experience in bioengineering, both at industrial and academic level, gives her the advantage of being able to see projects through from research and development to full commercialisation.

Her focus has always been on medical diagnostics, and one of the projects currently being undertaken by her team is point of care rapid blood bioassays. This research would allow certain parameters to be monitored during complex cardiac surgery operations - an area which could be extremely valuable to surgeons performing complicated procedures.

"There is still a big gap in the market and the technology as far as rapid immuno-assays are concerned," she says. "It's very difficult to do precisely and sensitively but we're working with colleagues at the Hammersmith Hospital in London towards a system whereby it will be possible to monitor accurately for any extreme inflammatory responses in cardiac surgery."

One of the most exciting pieces of bioengineering research currently being worked on by her team is non-invasive diagnostics; specifically a pioneering technique for monitoring glucose and lactate levels useful in a variety of care situations, including monitoring of patients during surgery and in intensive care.

The technology works on a similar basis to an electrocardiogram (ECG), passing an electric current through two gels pads placed on the skin. Any molecule which is electrically charged is drawn through the skin by the electro-osmotic effect of the pads. The benefits are twofold: fast, point of care results allowing parameters to be monitored easily, and removal of the glucose and lactose molecules without ever breaking the skin.

Prof Connolly says: "Molecules of a very low weight - up to 500 Daltons - can pass through the skin onto these positively and negatively charged pads. They can pass through the pores and hair follicles or through the cells and the top dry layer of skin.  Lactate has a negative charge and so would end up on the positive pad, while glucose has a positive charge and would be drawn to the negative pad. It's very often useful to know the behaviour of glucose and lactose in patients as they essentially give a snapshot of how the body's metabolism is functioning and we envisage this technology will really make a huge difference to how these parameters are monitored."

In addition, the team has received Proof of Concept funding for a clinical prototype of a sensor system which will monitor the hydration level of a wound dressing, ensuring it is kept at an optimum level.

With the West of Scotland's life sciences industry undoubtedly burgeoning, Prof Connolly says that as the community continues to grow and develop it's likely that it will also diversify.  The life science industry is very strong in the West of Scotland," she says. "There are a lot of extremely exciting and encouraging things being done in areas like drug discovery and R&D, for example."

"With such close links between all areas of life science and the new projects between life science research and engineering, it's good that so many people in the West of Scotland are highly skilled in more than one area, because that's certainly where the future lies."

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